Archive 1986 – 2017

TFF Live An intro to TFF PressInfo # 414 A & B

Part A here The role – again – of marketing companies in selling wars Few wars have been so thoroughly media-managed and marketing-loaded as that on Syria. No wonder arms deals are too – otherwise citizens around the world would protest loudly that their tax money is spent on destruction and more destruction and all the promises of the past that this – or that – arms deal will increase security and peace in the world have turned out to be fake information – disinformation – and an integral part of what can only be termed “fearology” by governments against their own people. One must therefore welcome Russia Today’s excellent research by Alexey Yaroshevsky also on this dimension. This report is high-speed but listen carefully to it as it points out two US companies associated with this deal and US-Saudi relations with questionable image – a report that also highlight to some extent the...

The Secretary-General also said this new home’s “potential is enormous”. President Trump arrived on his first trip abroad to Saudi Arabia on May 19, 2017 and big things are supposed to happen, including Saudi Arabia presenting itself as a innovative, visionary leader of the region. His visit must be seen in the light of a number of events and trends, and in what follows we do like the military when it scans the horizon for enemies: we look for patterns – not the least Saudi Arabia’s “surprising new military goals” as Forbes’ Ellen Wald appropriately calls them. Or, as they say – we connect some dots that, invariable, Western mainstream media have no capacity and probably also no interest in connecting. This pattern consists of at least these events and long-term trends: 1. The broadening of NATO cooperation with Gulf countries – one may even see a Middle Eastern NATO branch emerge. 2. Saudi Arabia’s evident leadership...

Försvarsminister Peter Hultqvist och ÖB Mikael Bydén hävdar i sin DN-artikel den 15 maj att det finns uppenbar risk för påverkans- och informationsoperationer i anslutning till höstens militärövning Aurora 17, den största övningen på 24 år, med deltagande av sex NATO-länder och Finland. Artikeln visar verkligen risken för desinformation i våra media. Författarna talar om ett hotfullt och rustande Ryssland. Om NATO har de inga farhågor. Detta är uppseendeväckande, då de faktiska styrkeförhållandena pekar i motsatt riktning. Enligt det av svenska staten sponsrade forskningsinstitutet SIPRI är NATOs samlade rustningsbudget 881 miljarder dollars, och ökande, medan Rysslands rustningsbudget uppgår till 66 miljarder dollars, och minskande. Ryssland har alltså mindre än en trettondel av NATOs resurser. Omvänt är NATO mer än tretton gånger starkare än Ryssland. Vad gäller aggressiv framtoning har NATO de senaste tjugosex åren efter Warszawapaktens upplösning flyttat fram sina positioner och baser från västra Europa ända till Rysslands gräns...

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A key slogan during the student revolt in Paris May 1968, soon 50 years ago, was Imagination au pouvoir! Bring imagination to power! We were there, walking with thousands from Champs-Élysées to Place Etoile where a stentorian voice commanded us to sit in small groups in the circles under the Arch to “discuss the situation”. So we did. France is now suffering from more imagination deficit than ever. To call Le Pen-Front National “extreme right” when the issue is for or against the EU is not helpful. Left-right was 20th century politics. Why not think bigger, beyond EU: for or against EURASIA, Russia-China are ready? Trade fills trains London-Beijing; a West-East axis, not the old colonial obsession with North-South (neo)colonialism. And how about both, EURASIAFRICA? They hang together geographically. Another word for imagination is creativity.

During the French election no candidate talked about France’s nuclear weapons. In Britain, the subject has been raised in its election in an attempt to undermine the Labour Party leader, Jeremy Corbyn. But the long-time anti-bomb activist compromised his views, saying in effect he was against them but Labour Party policy was for them. Copyright: Jonathan Power.

/10/PTV1.jpg”> New US arms export deal with Saudi Arabia, worth US$ 100-300 billion – and Saudi Arabia is already the 3rd or 4th largest military spender on Earth. Alone it is 5 times larger than Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Coouncil 10 times bigger. Is this for a future smashing up of Iran and Syria? With Western aid? And what does NATO do in Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, the latter coordinated by Denmark’s ambassador there, Ms. Merete Juhl? And Arab wing of NATO?

By Gunnar Westberg, TFF Board The author was in the Gambia in March this year – the basics about The Gambia here. This article was written before the parliamentary elections in Gambia on April 6, 2017. You may read about their background and results here. At the presidential election His Excellency Sheikh Professor Alhaji Dr. Yahya Abdul-Aziz Awal Jemus Junkung Jammeh Naasiru Deen Babili Mansa, also known as Yaya Jammeh, was defeated with a narrow margin. This was quite unexpected, not in the least by Mr Jammeh himself, who apparently had not taken enough precautions with his manipulations of the election counts. He first accepted, then rejected the outcome and decided to stay on as president, but was finally ousted. Demonstrations, the so called “Kalamaa revolution”, went on for a considerable time. Women with broomsticks bravely swept the streets – who can prohibit street sweeping? – and waved their Kalamaa...

By Gunnar Westberg TFF Board member April 17, 2017 North Korea was utterly destroyed in the Korean war. The people of DPRK, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, are not allowed to forget that USA considered using nuclear weapons against them. There are frequent exercises when the population is rushed into underground shelters where they have to stay for days. The perceived, and maybe overblown, threats from the South are an effective way in raising support for the political leaders. The leaders of DPRK believe that their nuclear weapons will deter an attack from the south. Look at Khadafi in Libya, they say, he gave up his nukes and was attacked. Saddam Hussein had no nukes, he was attacked. We shall not give up the nuclear deterrent as long as we are under threat. In 1991 USA withdraw all nuclear weapons from South Korea. Subsequently North Korea and South Korea...

  Does anyone, however well-informed, know what President Donald Trump thinks about President Vladimir Putin? I hazard a guess that he is still more pro than anti, only he doesn’t quite know where to begin. It’s time overdue that they met and hammered out on the anvil what their mutual interests are. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have left a legacy that makes it hard for Trump to manoeuvre. They have trampled not so much on Putin but on Russia’s core interests. When Putin’s predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, and later Putin himself were lobbying for what the last Soviet leader, Mikhael Gorbachev, had called a “common European house” they were taking heed of a Russian mood to drive through a new entente. But there was no financial aid, as there was with Germany and Japan after World War 2. There was no move to envelop Russia into...

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